But the more you make mindfulness a habit the more consistent you will be with it.

When we build a habit, our brain demands that we continue with that habit because of the surprising way dopamine works. Your brain rewards itself by following good habits. And the longer you stick with the habit of meditating the more motivated you will be to continue.

Plus, meditation works cumulatively. The more you meditate the more you will get out of it.

There’s anther reason why you need to track meditation times too: Because time flies when you’re meditating.

Have you ever noticed how time flies when you meditate? You sit down on your awesome meditation cushion, close your eyes and… wait… where did the time go?

Time is valuable, and we all need to spend it wisely. When meditating, you want to spend the right amount of time doing different meditation techniques.

There are a lot of different meditation techniques (see the link above). You want to divide your time between different meditations.

It is important that you spend your meditation time on more than one meditation technique because different meditations offer different benefits in terms of health and well-being.

For example, Loving Kindness Meditation is very good for building positive feelings towards other people.

And breathing meditations (Anapanasati) are good for focus.

The take-away is this: you will get more out of meditation if you use a variety of different techniques.

To Make Meditation A Habit, Track Your Time. Here’s How

One way to get the most out of your meditation time is by tracking it. This way you can stick to a meditation plan lie my Beginners Mindfulness Plan.

To do this, start by choosing a good time-tracking app

Which app should you use?

There are lots of good time logging apps for Android and iOS that can help you to keep track of time. And, of course, it is entirely up to you which app you choose to use.

Personally, I like to use an Android app called aTimeLogger (and just for note, I am in no way affiliated or associated with this company, I’m just using this app as an example because it’s the one I use).

Using aTimeLogger you can do lots of great things:

You can set goals and specify how much time you want to spend on each meditation technique per week. This helps with habit-building.

You can divide a total time up into different segments. So, for instance, you can choose to spend a total 10 hours a week meditating, and you can then break that total time into smaller chunks, so you can spend two hours on one technique, half an hour on another, and so on.

You can track your meditation time.

When you track your meditation in this way, you take your practice up a notch. You are able to make sure that you divide your meditation time up between different techniques, which is vital if you want to get the most out of meditation.

Tracking meditation Time with aTimeLogger

This guide is written using aTimeLogger, but feel free to use whichever app you prefer. Lots of apps offer similar functionality. I use aTimeLogger because it’s the app I enjoy the most

3. Choose how much time you would like to meditate for in a week

Once you’ve chosen this amount of time, create it as a task in aTimeLogger.

Enter it into the logger under the heading “Meditation”.

In a TimeLogger, I create a “Task” called “Meditation”

CREATE THE “MEDITATION” TASK

Click on the three dots at the top and then choose GOALS

Enter the details for how long you would like to spend meditating in total.

4. Divide your total meditation time into chunks for each individual technique.

You’ve now entered a total meditation time. The next step is to divide the total up into different chunks of time that you will spend on each individual meditation techniques.

I know that I will meditate for around ten hours a week, give or take depending on how my schedule.

I also know how important each meditation technique is for me, dependent on my individual needs.

So I can then break up my ten hours of meditation into different chunks.

So, for instance, I might choose to spend 2 hours a week doing each of five meditation techniques, to make ten hours total.

You will need to create each meditation as a different TASK using the steps above.

Then assign the right amount of time using the GOALS section of the logger.

Go ahead and enter your goals for each meditation technique.

In the picture I am setting a goal of 2 hours for the task of Loving Kindness Meditation.

Do the same for the other types of meditation that you have chosen.

Note: You will want to switch the GOAL TYPE to “Reach” instead of “Limit”.

5. Next time you meditate, record it using the app

Each time you meditate you will want to track it.

To track your meditations, you use the Activities section of the app.

Visit the “Activities” tab of the app.

Click the activity you are doing (the type of meditation you are doing).

The app will start tracking the time.

When you finish meditating, just press the STOP button.

The ACTIVITIES section of the app

NOTE: This image shows more than just meditation because I use it for my work and exercise as well.

6. The app will track each time you meditate and record the totals.

Using the app, you can see how much time you have spent doing each meditation technique.

Visit the GOALS tab. (Click the three dots at the top, and then GOALS).

This will show you how much time you have currently spent doing each task.

This helps you make meditation a habit because you can visualise the time you’ve spent meditating.

On the GOALS tab you will see how much time you have spent on each meditation technique in a given day or week.

The green lines represent items that you are doing well on. The yellow are items you’re okay on. The red are items you need to work more on.

So, for instance, if you have a green line for Zen meditation but a red line for Breathing meditation, it’s time to stop doing Zen and start doing breathing meditations.

This helps you stick to the habit because you can see when you are behind. Time to catch up!

Eh, voila! You now have a great way of tracking your meditation time and making mindfulness a habit. No more missing that special morning meditation.

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Paul Harrison

Paul Harrison is a meditation teacher, author and journalist based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Paul has helped thousands of people to discover their true potential. Don’t miss Paul’s inspirational and enlightening book: Your Best Meditation